The city of Seattle has hired a private company to rifle through people’s garbage cans looking for “food waste.” If your trash container contains more than 10 percent of the offensive trash – and even “food-stained” garbage like soiled napkins – your curbside garbage bin will be tagged with a bright red sticker intended to shame you and you’ll be fined $1 on your next bill.

It’s an effort to reduce the amount of food waste in landfills – which is expensive and heavy to haul around, fills up our city dumps and gives off the scary global-warming gas methane.

In an NPR article, they claim the private contractors “don’t have to comb through the trash,” because they can see violations. But unless these folks have X-Ray vision, they’re not really enforcing the law.

So while they’re scrounging for banana peels and your half-eaten Hungry Man, what else will these authorized government monitors find? An edition of Barely Legal? A copy of The Anarchist Cookbook? Maybe a Home Depot receipt showing you bought some fertilizer? Because I’ll bet you that these private contractors are either encouraged – or required – to report “suspicious” garbage to the city.